Palm Sunday, or El dia de rams, is a very special day in the calender here. Although rather fabulous if you are to be on the receiving end, it's rather unfortunate if you're a godparent because tradition dictates that you shell out a potential fortune on a tortell (a kind of cake) or la mona (a chocolate figure). I've seen many in the bakeries, orientated towards young children, in the shape of Hello Kitty or a Smurf or whatever else kids are watching nowadays on the tele.... I've also seen the hugest Easter egg, which I'm dying to roll down a hill in true English fashion. Except that there aren't many hills in Girona so the closest thing I can think of would be the escalators in the train station, but even this would be problematic, for there are only up escalators. But I digress...
The other tradition is for the children to carry a palm leaf or cross to the church on Sunday, dressed in their very best, to have the priest bless it and so bring them good fortune for the rest of the year. And it truly was adorable - some of the students from the academy were there in their pretty little dresses or smart jeans, and they clung to their palm leaves in the hot sunshine, attempting to get the best place to be blessed. It all took place in the square by the church, priests standing on the steps and announcing the beginning of the ceremony to the congregation below, most of whom scarpered when the priest invited us to mass, demonstrating that while traditions are being kept alive, in Catalunya at least, religion is not as prevalent as once it may have been.
Children have the palms, then, but for the parents? The adult equivalent of bringing palm leaves to be blessed is instead bringing a branch of llorers, or bay leaves; they leave the ceremony safe in the knowledge that for the rest of the year their culinary creations, their spaghetti bolognaises and lasagnes will be blessed and holy. Proof that lasagne is divine.
Alas, I had no bay leaves to be blessed, not even packaged supermarket ones. What's a girl to do if even a bolognaise won't protect her? Brother Maynard, fetch forth the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
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